THE FINANCIER
intelligible way that beautiful and dignified old court-
call, which begins, " Hear ye ! hear ye! hear ye !" and ends,
"All those of you having just cause for complaint draw
near and ye shall be heard." You would have thought
it was of no importance in the world, this beautiful and
noble statement based on the majesty of the law in so
far as it is based on the will of the people; but, neverthe-
less, it was. Only custom and indifference had allowed
it to fall so badly from grace. A third bailiff guarded the
door of the jury-room; and in addition to these there was
present a court clerk—small, pale, candle-waxy, with
colorless milk-and-water eyes, and thin, pork-fat-colored
hair and beard, who looked for all the world like an
Americanized and decidedly decrepit Chinese mandarin
—and a court stenographer.
Part One, or Room One, where this, to Cowperwood,
very significant trial was to take place, was presided over
at this time by Judge Wilbur Payderson, a lean herring of
a man, who had sat in this case originally as the examining
judge when Cowperwood had been indicted by the grand
jury, and who had bound him over for trial at this term.
Payderson was a peculiarly interesting type of judge, as
judges go. He was so meager and thin-blooded that it
was interesting to contemplate him. Technically, he
was learned in the law; actually, so far as life was con-
cerned, absolutely unconscious of that subtle chemistry
of things that transcends all written law and makes for
the spirit and, beyond that, for the absolute inutility of
all law, as all wise judges know. You could have looked
at this lean, pedantic body, his frizzled gray hair, his fishy,
blue-gray eyes, without any depth of speculation in them,
and his nicely modeled but unimportant face, and told
him that he was without imagination; but he would not
have believed you—would have fined you for contempt
of court. By the careful garnering of all his little oppor-
tunities, the furbishing up of every meager advantage;
by listening slavishly to the voice of party, and following
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